Brew Views: The Dead Zone

When missiles fly.

Like The Shining, The Dead Zone is
proof that films are much better off using Stephen King’s ideas as a
template rather than treating them as gospel. Make no mistake, 1983’s The Dead Zone is
a full-on, bug-fuck David Cronenberg flick, and King himself could
never have imagined a creation so strange and surreal as Christopher
Walken. Here, as a man plagued by psychic premonitions and visions of a
global disaster, Walken eschews punctuation in his trademark way and
one-ups his own oddball delivery. Matching Walken step by step is Martin
Sheen as a deranged senator. But really, if the movie consisted solely
of Walken reacting in a Walken-y way to his premonitions as if being
zapped in the brain, it would still be terrific.